Tag: knitting

Stuck? Cast On to the rescue

Sometimes, when you’re stuck, the best thing to do is cast on something new.

The writing for my v-neck cardigan is not going well. There is nothing wrong with the sweater, it’s done, just the writing part is stuck, stuck, stuck. I am dithering about my next sweater project, and … just generally indecisive. What sweater should I wear? Is it still cool enough to wear wool socks? What’s the weather like today anyway? Should I go for a walk or a bike ride? Is it raining? Sigh, it’s been that sort of week.

So I cast on a shawl. This shawl: The Rain Outside by Sylvia McFadden of softsweaterknits

I know it will keep me busy and calm my brain down so I can get back to work.

It’s a terrific mix of garter stitch stripes and lace windows. I’ve finished my first window.

Looking forward to the next one. Isn’t it great when the knitting pulls you forward?

I hope your knitting is going great. Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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Deadlines

Quite often, when I have a deadline, I lose interest in my project. It becomes work and not play. Does this happen to you?

You would think, that giving myself deadlines wouldn’t work this way but it does. I guess, trying to do anything knitting-wise in a hurry is not a good idea. Making knitting fabric is just slow going and trying to move it along faster is frustrating. I also find the same thing with writing patterns. Forcing the writing doesn’t make it go any faster in the long run.

I have been pushing myself to finish this Any Gauge V-Neck Cardigan. Last night I went on a 5 hour Youtube binge to get the last of the sleeves done. I’m tired today but happy to show you it is done, or mostly. I have to sew in ends and find some buttons but the knitting is finished.

But … I bet you saw that coming, the writing is stalled big time.

If I got you started with the V-neck, I bet, with a few photos, you could finish the rest, right? I’m sure you could.

I’m going to give myself a week off, look for some buttons, maybe sew in the ends (that might be a stretch), knit on my socks and see if the writing improves next week. Note to self: having some finished sweater photos would help a lot.

Wish me luck! Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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Stabilize the Back of Neck of a Top Down

My favourite way to begin a Top Down garment is with the ribbed neckband. I’m not enamored with picking up stitches around the neck opening and would rather just jump right in and get going.

This is going to be a new Any Gauge project: a V-neck cardigan.

The Back of Neck in this type of Top Down tends to stretch. I have been experimenting with ways to make a firm edge across the Back of the Neck on the last row of the ribbed Neckband. Here it is.

Let me know if you try this. I think it’s working for me.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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The In-between

After finishing a large project, what do you do?

Walk away from knitting for a bit? No, no, no, of course not. You cast on something else.

I was thinking about a small project, but what jumped onto my needle was a shawl. Not a small project, sigh.

It wasn’t actually as straightforward as that. I had some navy, hand-dyed sock wool and cast on for socks. A small project, at least small in size, to carry around.

The yarn had cashmere in it, and after I knit the cuff, I thought maybe cashmere is sort of wasted on socks, so I ripped it out and here I am.

This is the Magic Symmetry Shawl, knit starting at the side with 3 stitches with increases worked on the leading edge.

This usually makes an asymmetric shape, but this is going to be symmetrical when it’s done, wider than it is tall. To my mind this makes it so much easier to wear.

I figured out a new stitch to add to the pattern. Doesn’t this show off the contrast colour?

I thought I would knit eyelets in the contrast colour rows. I  worked [Yo, K2tog] and found I liked the wrong side better. So now I knit the right side row and on the wrong side row work [Yo, P2tog]. So happy with how this looks.

It’s not such a large project after all.

Cheers Deb

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Stripes 3×3

I’m stashbusting. I have quite a few 50g skeins of Shelridge 80/20 fingering wool and it’s going into a cardigan.

I’m going to work 3×3 stripes. Three colours, three rows of each. This is especially terrific if you are working back and forth. You’ll see why very soon.

Getting started is fairly straightforward. Three rows of each of the three colours: yellow, blue, and ending with the purple on the left side.

Now for the next stripe: Yellow.

On the left side, when I finish the purple stripe, the yellow yarn is ready to work. There is no other colour strand available. The yellow stripe will end on the right side. What colour is available to knit with on the right side? You got it. The blue is available.

Three more rows of blue finishes on the left, and the purple is there waiting to be worked.

Is this not perfect? Each time you finish a 3 row stripe, the next colour is there waiting in the wings for you to pick up and continue.

You can twist the waiting colour around the colour you are working with once during each stripe to keep the carries neat and tidy. You are carrying yarn up both front edges of your cardigan. I think this is a great advantage. I always worry if carrying the colours up only one side that that side will tighten up. This way they are even.

To add some extra interest to the 3×3 stripes, on a wrong side row, I knit one of the rows of each stripe to get some texture happening. It also cuts down on the amount of purling I have to do on this cardigan.

Top Down Cardigan knitting has begun.

Cheers and happy knitting into spring. Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free knitting patterns by Deb

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Time consuming but worth it

How long does a sweater of yours  sit unfinished?

This little 4 year sized Family Crew Neck sat for quite a while because I didn’t know how to do the sleeves.

The colour fade yarn was great. I had already bought a second ball to do the sleeves.

I wound off the lime green, yellow and into the orange of the second ball of yarn.

I wound up all the orange into a separate ball. Then, I wound off some of that orange ball to make 2 equal sized balls. I knit one sleeve and then the other until the length of the orange in the sleeve was as close as I could get it to the body.

Then I did the same with the red and then again with the purple.

Yes, it was time-consuming, but I’m really happy with the result.

He likes likes it. He really likes it.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-free patterns by Deb

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Done? Well almost

Yarn chicken and I won. Yahoo!!!

This is where knitting the Family Crew Neck or any top down knit comes into its own.

As it became increasingly obvious I would be very close on the amount of yarn I had left, I took some time to sort through  my priorities. I did need the body to be long enough. I could deal with a sleeve modification.

So, I  knit the sleeves to just before the cuffs and broke the yarn. If I ran out of yarn, I could rip them back to make them 3/4 length.

Then, I knit the body to the bottom border. I decided a split hem would serve me best at this point. I worked the front panel of the split hem. Not as long as I would like but the minimum amount. Broke the yarn again.

I’m sure you can see the theme here: knit, look at the ball of yarn I have left, work some more, stare harder at the little ball, make a decision and knit some more.

Done.

There are many, many ends to sew in but I’m happy with this Family Crew Neck knit with Shelridge Yarns W4 worsted.

Can you tell I’m 😮 surprised and so very pleased. Whew.

Hope your knitting is successful too.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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Now You See It

My Family Crew Neck was progressing nicely. The body was knit to the waist, and I had knit one sleeve to above the cuff and started the second sleeve.

Then, because that little voice in my head kept bothering me, I decided to count stitches.

Oops, it was huge and my idea of working an a-line body was making it worse. So, now you see it …

… and now you don’t. Rip, rip, rip.

In the end, this was the only solution. Now I have hours of extra knitting to do. That’s not a bad thing, right?

Back on track and much happier.

Here’s hoping your knitting is going a little bit better.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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Finish one, Cast On for another

Here we go. This is the knitting merry-go-round. I just finished a large project: the Family Crew Neck. I hadn’t knit one for myself. Now I have one, yay! I was also knitting one for my grandson at the same time. I did quite a few blog posts about them: use the tag Family Crew Neck.

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Two sweaters going at the same time, I know, craziness but both are finished now so … of course, I cast on another sweater! I can’t help myself. Maybe I need help?!

This is Shelridge Yarns 80/20 fingering in navy and is part of my 2024 knitting goal of adding fingering weight sweaters to my wardrobe. Now that spring is beginning I’m inspired to get going on this.

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If you’re a sock knitter you know how this goes. Cast off a one sock, cast on another. Not to be outdone, I did that too. After a larger project, it’s satisfying to knit a smaller project, not that socks are especially small but they seem to be after a sweater.

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This is Timber Yarns sock yarn. I love those stripes and because of them, I tried an afterthought heel. Not new exactly, but not a heel I usually like to do. I was somewhat surprised but it worked out great. I will do this again now that I tried them again.

Now I need to go to my local yarn store to get some more yarn. I’m going to show you how this Shallow V-neck Cardigan works as I go along, and navy is not going to photograph well enough to do that. Something thicker would be good for knitting a ‘companion’ second cardigan.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free knitting patterns by Deb

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Knit to Fit: More bust shaping

My theory is that the front of our sweaters should be wider than the backs for two obvious reasons.

We don’t need it to be wider everywhere. Just where we need it. (Do I need Bust Darts?)

This is a refined version of the Knit for Fit: Top Down Easy Bust Shaping and what I actually do for many of my sweaters. The Family Crew Neck and the Any Gauge Raglan Pullover have the instructions to do this in the Modification Pages.

As I approach the bottom of the yoke, I work an extra increase beside the raglan increase ON THE FRONTS ONLY. Now I have added an extra stitch on both sides of the front. (The black slashes are where the extra increases are.) I usually do this for several rows or rounds.

Here’s a more obvious example on a sweater I’m knitting now. In Aran weight yarn (heavy worsted) you can see the increases clearly. I did quite a few because this is a cardigan and I didn’t want the dreaded button pull on the front.

The change from the last post is that at the same time I was working these extra increases on the fronts, I STOP INCREASING ON THE BACK. Can you do that? Just stop increasing? Yes you can.

This is all done very close to the bottom of your yoke. You get a little straight line on the back, very near the underarm, so no one can see it.

  1. The bonus is that my back is now 2+” narrower than the front of my sweater.

2. The second bonus of working the extra increases beside the raglan increases on the front and not increasing on the back is that you are still increasing 8 stitches on every increase row or round. It doesn’t mess with the number of stitches you need at the bottom of the yoke.

You do have to work decreases down the sides of the front body between the largest point of your bust and your waist to take all or some of these extra front stitches away. Then begin your hip shaping.

Yes, shaping your sweaters does have lots of parts to it. Try one step at a time. You are the boss of your knitting.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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